Cashless gaming systems and player tracking systems generally require a player to insert a portable data unit, such as a smart card, magnetic stripe card, ticket, or the like, into a data unit reader at a gaming machine. The portable data unit is first issued to the player by a gaming establishment or other registration authority. The portable data unit may carry monetary or player tracking information directly on the data unit. Alternatively, the gaming machine may be linked to a central host computer that administers accounts for a plurality of players. In this case, the portable data unit may only carry a personal identifier for accessing a player's account at the central host computer. The monetary or player tracking information may be encrypted or unencrypted, depending upon the level of security desired for the application involved.
Heretofore, to communicate with gaming machines, portable data units of the above type have had to be manually inserted by players into data unit readers at the gaming machines. This arrangement suffers from numerous drawbacks. First, the process of retrieving the portable data unit and manually inserting it into a data unit reader can be inconvenient to a player especially if the player wishes to play numerous gaming machines in a relatively short period of time. Second, unless the portable data unit is somehow attached to the player by a string, chain, or the like, a player may forget to remove the portable data unit from a data unit reader upon completion of a gaming session, thereby possibly allowing a subsequent unscrupulous player at that gaming machine to use the data unit for his/her own benefit. Third, data unit readers are often disposed at peculiar locations on gaming machines, such as above a video or mechanical display. This, in turn, requires a player to awkwardly reach for the peculiar location to manually insert the portable data unit. If the portable data unit is attached to a string or the like, it is common for the string to hang over and partially obscure the machine display as the player plays the gaming machine.
Accordingly, a need exists for a portable data unit that can communicate with a gaming machine without inserting the data unit into a data unit reader.